Yeezus wrote:Does it get better? I'm not sure if this is for me anymore. Is all the stress worth it? It's not even like I'm being productive either while being stressed out.

it gets better. and then you'll probably feel confused and frustrated again. it's cyclical. but you'll be okay. try to find things that don't stress you out, and do those every once in a while. like playing with a pet or something totally not law school related. a movie or something. it's the little things that work best

Yeezus wrote:I'm losing motivation at the worst possible time...

it's funny you mention losing motivation at the worst possible time. i'm willing to bet you're not doing as bad as you think. one of my 1L professors basically called these "waves" of stress that happened at certain points throughout the semester. it was very empathetic of him, and I think it might be about that time.

you'll be okay though. it might be shitty sometimes. you might feel like you're not really making progress, and that whatever you do is futile. i was probably going through one of those "waves" recently. you get tired of that shit. but I still enjoy law. if you do (even in the abstract), this is probably still for you

m27 wrote:Upperclassmen have advised me to draft rule pre-writes for all the major topics (PJ, SMJ, venue, transfer, Erie, etc.) and doing a ton of old exams/hypos to practice using them. Apparently, this works well for my professor in particular since those who simply made an outline always ran out of time and did poorly.Do you think I should still put such information in "outline" format in addition to pre-writes? I feel like my time would be better spent practicing the application of those rules via practice exams or outlining the material on pleadings, joinder, etc.

Would anyone mind giving some examples of these "prewrites" or know of a good resource for them?

m27 wrote:Upperclassmen have advised me to draft rule pre-writes for all the major topics (PJ, SMJ, venue, transfer, Erie, etc.) and doing a ton of old exams/hypos to practice using them. Apparently, this works well for my professor in particular since those who simply made an outline always ran out of time and did poorly.Do you think I should still put such information in "outline" format in addition to pre-writes? I feel like my time would be better spent practicing the application of those rules via practice exams or outlining the material on pleadings, joinder, etc.

Would anyone mind giving some examples of these "prewrites" or know of a good resource for them?

The rules are what your professor says they are. One way to "prewrite" rule statements that is also not a huge time burden is to take rule statements you write in your practice exams (from your IRAC) and tweak them to make sure you have everything and they're perfect. Pre-writing rule statements (so you can mindlessly and quickly copy them verbatim) is a huge timesaver on exams, but it does not replace outlining. In my experience, outlining is important because it helps you learn the material so you can compare cases and apply the facts on the exams to the rules.

Here are some examples of Torts rules statements I prewrote for my exam:

Battery: Under R2T 18, an actor is liable for battery if they intend to cause harmful or offensive contact and offensive contact directly or indirectly results. Moreover, Garratt establishes that an actor is liable for battery if he knew with substantial certainty that his actions would cause contact/indirect harm.

Trespass: Under R2T 158, trespass is the intentional entering of another person’s land, remaining on the land, or failing to remove a thing from the land. Actors are liable for any mistakes (R2T 164), but are not liable for any accidental or involuntary intrusions onto land (R2T 166). Under R2T 168, a conditional or restricted consent to enter land creates a privilege only to do so as the condition or restriction is complied with.

Consent: Per restatement 892, consent is willingness for conduct to occur which must be express, implied, or reasonable. If words are reasonably understood to be intended as consent, they constitute apparent consent.

IIED: Under R2T 46, IIED is (1) intentional or reckless (2) extreme and outrageous conduct that (3) causes severe emotional distress. The threshold for proving IIED is very high and it would need to cause the average person to exclaim “outrageous!” (Murratore). Murratore adds the additional element of the defendant’s subjective state of mind if that have shown express discontent. In addition, Pemberton says that “rough and tumble” plaintiffs are held to a higher standard for severe emotional distress.

Keep in my that every professor is different and wants different things. Some professors give points for rule statements, most don't. I type fast and so I was able to crank out these rule statements really fast and would sometimes leave parts I thought superfluous when retyping them off my exams. I found it helpful to know that my rule statements were correct going into an exam (based on how the class was taught) and that I could focus all my energy on issue-spotting and analysis. For the most part, I prewrote my rule statements the night before each exams and used rule statements from practice tests to make it go faster.

NoBladesNoBows wrote:27 days out from first exam and feel like I'm just spinning my wheels. I've never been much of a studyer (took classes that just came naturally to me, along with classmates of less-than-average intelligence) so now I'm trying to learn both the law and how to learn the law. I know what outlining means intellectually, but every time I try to do it I just freeze up. It's funny cause I'm great at tests and never get anxiety/freeze during them, but notetaking/outlining/studying stops me dead in my tracks. Obviously a law school exam isn't something I can just glide through, so what do I do right now? Thankfully (I think) it's not too late to whip myself into shape, but I am worried enough about this that I might actually make a separate topic...

NoBladesNoBows wrote:27 days out from first exam and feel like I'm just spinning my wheels. I've never been much of a studyer (took classes that just came naturally to me, along with classmates of less-than-average intelligence) so now I'm trying to learn both the law and how to learn the law. I know what outlining means intellectually, but every time I try to do it I just freeze up. It's funny cause I'm great at tests and never get anxiety/freeze during them, but notetaking/outlining/studying stops me dead in my tracks. Obviously a law school exam isn't something I can just glide through, so what do I do right now? Thankfully (I think) it's not too late to whip myself into shape, but I am worried enough about this that I might actually make a separate topic...

NoBladesNoBows wrote:. I know what outlining means intellectually, but every time I try to do it I just freeze up. It's funny cause I'm great at tests and never get anxiety/freeze during them, but notetaking/outlining/studying stops me dead in my tracks.

How are your notes from class? I take pretty good notes, and my outlining has mostly consisted of me going through them page by page and synthesizing them more finely. Get 100 pages of notes down to 30 pages of outline. Then take that outline and knock it down to 10, then 2.

I'm not sure how I'd go about it if I didnt have my stacks of notes, though

NoBladesNoBows wrote:27 days out from first exam and feel like I'm just spinning my wheels. I've never been much of a studyer (took classes that just came naturally to me, along with classmates of less-than-average intelligence) so now I'm trying to learn both the law and how to learn the law. I know what outlining means intellectually, but every time I try to do it I just freeze up. It's funny cause I'm great at tests and never get anxiety/freeze during them, but notetaking/outlining/studying stops me dead in my tracks. Obviously a law school exam isn't something I can just glide through, so what do I do right now? Thankfully (I think) it's not too late to whip myself into shape, but I am worried enough about this that I might actually make a separate topic...

This is me.

Two words: Practice exams.

You have plenty of time. Sit down, go through class notes. What really helped me was getting an outline for the course from another student or the school's outline bank. I absolutely hated making an outline from scratch cuz I'm lazy. Open your class notes on your computer and open the outline next to it. Go through the outline and your notes at the same time. Add shit that is missing from the outline that is in your notes. That's all there is to it.

Digest your notes, make an outline, study said outline, do a shit load of PTs, get A. By the time you take the actual exams, it'll feel just like taking PTs. I aced every single class that had PTs available and ended up median in classes that didn't.

NoBladesNoBows wrote:27 days out from first exam and feel like I'm just spinning my wheels. I've never been much of a studyer (took classes that just came naturally to me, along with classmates of less-than-average intelligence) so now I'm trying to learn both the law and how to learn the law. I know what outlining means intellectually, but every time I try to do it I just freeze up. It's funny cause I'm great at tests and never get anxiety/freeze during them, but notetaking/outlining/studying stops me dead in my tracks. Obviously a law school exam isn't something I can just glide through, so what do I do right now? Thankfully (I think) it's not too late to whip myself into shape, but I am worried enough about this that I might actually make a separate topic...

This is me.

Two words: Practice exams.

You have plenty of time. Sit down, go through class notes. What really helped me was getting an outline for the course from another student or the school's outline bank. I absolutely hated making an outline from scratch cuz I'm lazy. Open your class notes on your computer and open the outline next to it. Go through the outline and your notes at the same time. Add shit that is missing from the outline that is in your notes. That's all there is to it.

Digest your notes, make an outline, study said outline, do a shit load of PTs, get A. By the time you take the actual exams, it'll feel just like taking PTs. I aced every single class that had PTs available and ended up median in classes that didn't.

NoBladesNoBows wrote:Thanks for the advice...problem is class notes are not great either. I remember what we've talked about though, if not in-depth detail, so I think a quick skim back through the book should be enough. Definitely will take me longer than the people with pages of detailed notes though. I've thought about asking someone for their notes but I don't wanna be that guy :-/

I'm planning on leaning heavily on supplements though. I learn pretty well through reading and I've started through some (Emmanuel's outlines, E&Es) and they seem really helpful. And again I remember what we talked about in class if not the specific details, so I'm not too worried about getting sidetracked with irrelevant stuff. Definitely gonna go nuts on the PTs though. Hopefully this will be enough. I guess we'll know soon!

This is my approach as well. My notes are more or less nonexistent haha. Old outlines ftw. I'll get whatever grades I'm going to get, and adjust my approach accordingly next semester.

Big Red wrote:Thoughts on taking practice tests that don't have a model answer?

I'm getting together with a small group of people in one of my classes to sit down in a room and take PT's under timed conditions and then compare answers with each other. Unfortunately this is for a class where we only get one PT and no model answer(s). The goal is to be able to fill in holes and find weaknesses based on the feedback from others.

I opened this thread for the first time in a year and a half and though I remember my mentally unhealthy 1L very well it's sort of surreal to see it all written out again.

It was shitty, I hated myself, and I sucked at everything related to law school. And it still turned out fine.

I wish I were the kind of person who could keep some perspective and not stew in my own self-hatred every time I wasn't perfect at something that was important to me. But if you can avoid getting in your own head about all this stuff, you're through 90% of the battle. The actual amount of work you'll wind up doing is comparatively unremarkable.

The tsunami of truth that is "You can ALWAYS do more..." is crashing waves of hopelessness upon the barren shores of my self-worth right now, especially with exams right around the corner. The flickering candlelight of optimism that I once had at the beginning of the semester has been extinguished and swallowed up by reality.

unsweetened wrote:The tsunami of truth that is "You can ALWAYS do more..." is crashing waves of hopelessness upon the barren shores of my self-worth right now, especially with exams right around the corner. The flickering candlelight of optimism that I once had at the beginning of the semester has been extinguished and swallowed up by reality.

Keep your candles away from water and you will - likely - have longer burn times

Seriously though, take a walk outside. Look at some trees changing colors. Meditate. Enjoy a nice meal. Watch a funny movie. Play with a dog. You get the picture. This semester is important, but there are more important things in this world that don't care about how you do in law school. You'll get through this, and you will do better than you think you will!

unsweetened wrote:The tsunami of truth that is "You can ALWAYS do more..." is crashing waves of hopelessness upon the barren shores of my self-worth right now, especially with exams right around the corner. The flickering candlelight of optimism that I once had at the beginning of the semester has been extinguished and swallowed up by reality.

Keep your candles away from water and you will - likely - have longer burn times

Seriously though, take a walk outside. Look at some trees changing colors. Meditate. Enjoy a nice meal. Watch a funny movie. Play with a dog. You get the picture. This semester is important, but there are more important things in this world that don't care about how you do in law school. You'll get through this, and you will do better than you think you will!

I'm already having flashbacks to Overseas Tankship Ltd.In seriousness though, I need to get actual sleep. Open memo didn't help with that. Last night I got a nightmare call from my neighbor back home that my fiancee had been in a serious accident. I'm more worried about that right now. 1L would probably be a lot easier to deal with in a vacuum, but that hasn't happened. I'm trying to remind myself that there are only 3 more days of classes left and just to power through it.